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One week after paying its former CEO Bob Nardelli a severance package worth $210 million, Home Depot raised eyebrows in the business community again today by paying an incompetent salesclerk $12 million "to go away forever."

In an official statement released to Wall Street analysts this morning, Home Depot said that it was paying the former salesclerk, Lucas Rekson, 24, the unprecedented sum on the condition that "he never shows up to work again."

The $12 million severance package for Mr. Rekson of the company's Torrance, California store is believed to be the largest of its kind ever for a low-level incompetent employee, industry experts said.

During his two-month tenure as a salesclerk at Home Depot, Mr. Rekson made his mark by repeatedly spilling boxes of nails on the floor and accidentally banging into customers with large pieces of lumber.

In defense of the Mr. Rekson's gargantuan severance package, company spokesman Carol Foyler offered this rationale: "If it means that Lucas will never work for Home Depot again, then $12 million is a bargain."

Reached at his home, Mr. Rekson was taking his place in business history in stride, telling reporters that after a brief vacation in Aruba he would start looking for work again.

"I'd like to get a job at Office Max," he said. "After a couple of months working there, I wonder how much they'd pay me to go away?"

Elsewhere, the mysterious foul odor hovering over New York City on Monday was traced to the Sunday playoff performances of the Jets and the Giants.

JWR Contributor Andy Borowitz, the first-ever recipient of the National Press Club's Award for Humor, is a former president of the Harvard Lampoon,and a regular humor columnist for Newsweek.com, The New Yorker, The New York Times and TV Guide. Recognized by Esquire magazine as one of the most powerful producers in television, he was the creator and producer of the hit TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and producer of the Oscar-nominated film Pleasantville.